Volume 9, No 1
Article 文章
Abstract 摘要
Logographic script offers a striking contrast to the common alphabetic scripts in the world, and the use of radicals in the logographic script is a unique feature. The 214 radicals used in modern Chinese are derived from the 540 radicals found in Xushen’s Shuowen Jiezi of the Han Dynasty, and a high degree of continuity is maintained in the modern system. In this paper an attempt is made to offer a sociolinguistic analysis of the logographic radical system and to study its constituents on the basis of natural and hierarchical classification. This analysis leads to an exploration of the social and cultural scene associated with the inceptional phase of logographic radicals. One preliminary finding reported here is that this inceptional phase may be placed at the time of transition from nomadic hunting communities to the more sedentary agricultural communities. Furthermore, an imbalance between masculine and feminine categories is also shown. Matrilineal society has often been postulated for prehistorical Chinese society. In recent years supporting evidence has been revealed in archaeological investigations. The study of the logographic radical system offers the only other independent proof thus far.
Abstract 摘要
“A multidimensional scaling reanalysis of the Fok (1974) tone confusion data from Cantonese revealed three underlying perceptual dimensions that were interpretively labeled CONTOUR, DIRECTION, and HEIGHT, respectively. The influence of a Cantonese tone sandhi rule on a listener’s tonal perception was evident in the position of the high-falling tone (1) on the CONTOUR dimension. The weights of these dimensions were not found to vary much across the different kinds of tonal stimuli – natural speech tones, natural larynx tones, and synthetic larynx tones. These dimensions extracted from the patterns of tonal confusions in Cantonese were found to bear close resemblance to perceptual dimensions of tone that have emerged in other multidimensional scaling investigations.”
Abstract 摘要
In this study, the historical development of the aspiration contrast is examined based on a comparative analysis of Sino-Korean morphemes and their Middle Chinese cognates. The distributional asymmetry of the aspiration feature in the initial obstruents of Sino-Korean morphemes is interpreted as revealing a gradual phonemicization process which began with the dental obstruents at the time of the massive infusion of Chinese loan morphemes. This process then affected the labial stops, and finally the velar stops. Relevant phonetic and phonological data across languages and the language-internal trends are compared to show that the above asymmetry reflects both some phonetic universals and the relative phonological strengths among three different places of articulation affecting various phonological processes in the history of Korean.
Abstract 摘要
The Mandarin ba-construction is a genuine example of an S-PP-V construction emerging out of an earlier serial verb construction. But serial verb constructions are not the forerunners of disposal constructions in other dialects where the object-marking preposition is homophonous with a verb meaning ‘give’, or of passive constructions, including the Mandarin bei-construction. Proposals are made as to how syntactic reanalysis may have been responsible for the development of these two constructions, and some general observations on processes of syntactic change are set forth.
Abstract 摘要
Sentence-final particles are one of the ways by which a Chinese sentence is modulated. They are part of a larger system which includes verb determinants such as adverbs and modal auxiliary verbs as well as sentence intonation. This paper looks specifically at the particle ne 呢 and its relationship to sentence intonation. Several different uses of ne are described which have the common function of appealing in some way to the listener’s active participation.
Abstract 摘要
We report an experiment that is designed to compare the use of speech recoding by readers of Chinese and readers of English. We hypothesized that speech recoding would be used less by readers of Chinese, since their language provides fewer regular correspondences between the written forms of words and their sounds. Native speakers of Chinese and English silently read lists of sentences in their own language and made judgments of their truth or falsity. We compared their performance on two types of false sentences: those that contained a homophone word such that the sentence would sound true if read aloud (‘homophone sentences’), and those that did not (‘control sentences’). Readers of English took longer and made more errors on lists containing homophone sentences than on lists containing control sentences – a result that indicates use of speech recoding. Readers of Chinese were significantly less impaired by homophone sentences relative to controls than were readers of English. These results suggest that speech recoding is used less by readers of Chinese. It appears that the existence of spelling-sound rules encourages the use of inner speech in silent reading.
Report 报告
Abstract 摘要
We report an experiment that is designed to compare the use of speech recoding by readers of Chinese and readers of English. We hypothesized that speech recoding would be used less by readers of Chinese, since their language provides fewer regular correspondences between the written forms of words and their sounds. Native speakers of Chinese and English silently read lists of sentences in their own language and made judgments of their truth or falsity. We compared their performance on two types of false sentences: those that contained a homophone word such that the sentence would sound true if read aloud (‘homophone sentences’), and those that did not (‘control sentences’). Readers of English took longer and made more errors on lists containing homophone sentences than on lists containing control sentences – a result that indicates use of speech recoding. Readers of Chinese were significantly less impaired by homophone sentences relative to controls than were readers of English. These results suggest that speech recoding is used less by readers of Chinese. It appears that the existence of spelling-sound rules encourages the use of inner speech in silent reading.
Memoriam 缅怀
Bibliography 书目
New Publication 新书
Corrigenda 勘误
Volume 9, No 2
Article 文章
Abstract 摘要
Nanping is one of the two localities in Fujian where Mandarin dialects are spoken. The most conservative feature of Nanping is its retention of velar stops before high front vowels. The dental sibilants remain largely unpalatalized before high front vowels. There are no retroflex initials and the labiodental occurs only as an occasional variant. The alveolar nasal and lateral are in complete free variation. Middle Chinese nasal endings have all merged into a velar nasal. Stop endings have evolved into a glottal stop, which appears only when the syllable is the last stressed syllable before a juncture (/#/). In other positions, the glottal stop together with the shortness is lost. Such behavior of the final glottal stop has not been reported for other dialects. There is historical evidence of several influxes of soldiers and immigrants. This paper attempts to link structural evidence with historical incidents with a view to identifying the source of the main stratum of the Nanping Mandarin dialect.
Abstract 摘要
This paper reports a study of children’s acquisition of the aspiration contrast in word-initial stops in Cantonese, as measured by voice onset time (VOT). Adult data are first presented to specify the model which children are gradually approximating, and results are then presented from a longitudinal study of one Cantonese child, from the age of about 1;7 to 2;6, who acquired the contrast during the course of observation, and from four older children, aged 2;6 to 4 years. The subject of the longitudinal study first began producing a statistically significant VOT contrast around the age of 2;2 to 2;3 at the dental point of articulation. By the age of 2;6, the contrast had spread to the labial and velar stops. The four older children were all producing a VOT contrast at all three points of articulation, but the distinction was still not completely adult-like.
Abstract 摘要
“This article argues that the scope rules for Chinese quantifiers interacting with other quantifiers and operators have none of the complications that mark the English quantification system and can be stated in purely surface terms. This is a strong claim, yet supportable by an array of unambiguous evidence. The Chinese evidence thus constitutes a strong counter-example to the alleged universals for quantifier scope claimed by Ioup (1976: 37-58) where the author argued in effect that relative linear ordering at the surface level was not a parameter of quantifier scope. Though scope rules for a certain language may be shown to require additional complications on the form of its grammar, it would be inconceivable for a language not to exploit to the fullest extent possible the surface order possibilities as an essential component of its scope phenomena. Chinese is just such a language.”
Abstract 摘要
This article deals with Chinese words that have been assimilated into the English language during the several centuries of contact. After a brief historical account, four loan words are analyzed in depth: China, silk, tea, and typhoon. A larger vocabulary of loan words will follow in the next issue as An Anglo-Chinese Glossary.
Bibliography 书目
Abstract 摘要
This list of recent dissertations and theses is an attempt to update the bibliography of doctoral dissertations compiled by Stella Ting for JCL 1.1 (January 1973).
New Publications 新书
书讯
Project on Linguistic Analysis 语言学分析中心
ZH-CN 
EN 
ZH-HK